There
the slaves were not only encouraged to earn money for themselves in every
way they might, but the discipline of the plantations was vested in courts
composed wholly of slaves, proceeding formally and imposing penalties to be
inflicted by slave constables except when the master intervened with his
power of pardon. The regime was maintained for a number of years in full
effect until in 1862 when the district was invaded by Federal troops.[9]
[Footnote 9: W.L. Fleming, "Jefferson Davis, the Negroes and the Negro
Problem," in the _Sewanee Review_ (October, 1908).]
These several instances were of course exceptional, and they merely tend to
counterbalance the examples of systematic severity at the other extreme.
In general, though compulsion was always available in last resort, the
relation of planter and slave was largely shaped by a sense of propriety,
proportion and cooperation.
As to food, clothing and shelter, a few concrete items will reinforce the
indications in the preceding chapters that crude comfort was the rule.
Bartram the naturalist observed in 1776 that a Georgia slaveholder with
whom he stopped sold no dairy products from his forty cows in milk.
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